Transcripts For CSPAN3 Working In The Reagan Administration 20170413

So rather than the formal academic papers that were having on most of the other panels, this one will be more informal recollections and reminiscence of what it was like working in the administration for the president himself, the atmosphere at the time. And each of our panelists will offer ten to 15 minutes of prefatory comments and then well turn it over to q a. For my fellow mishistorians in the room, this is the time to do the Expert Interview youve been wanting do. Introducing our three panelists first over on this end the man who needs no introduction i mean it lirt rally because i introduced him three hours ago, again ambassador kenned a he willman. I dont mind, go on. All right. For our purposes here, though, was served as one of president reagans ambassadors to the sun u. N. And then head of the Arms Control Disarmament Agency and also a troubleshooter in a number of other ways. I want to talk to but your role in putting some of the pieces together after irancontra. Then in the middle here, again, a man to those of us here in austin and many other americans needs no introduction admiral bob inman, a professor here at the university lbj school. For our purposes a very important alum of the Reagan Administration. He was the nsa director at the beginning of the administration and was referenced by one of the speakers in the early panel. And then was the Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for the first few years of the administration. Admiral i dont know if i this but when i was doing some work i came across a letter from senator barry gold ert water to then president elect ronl Ronald Reagan urging him to appoint admiral inman as the director of the cia. The counter fact walz are interesting to see what might have played out. And then closest to me is proefr henry nau a zis distinguished scientist at George Washington university but for our purposes a Reagan Administration alum from the Security Council staff where he was senior director for International Economic affairs for the first couple of years. At final thing to say before i turn if over to our panelists weve got a tremendous breadth of people weve got henry who worked at the white house and admiral inman panhandle add he willman who were at department and agency wheres they also span the first and second term. Weve really got a pretty ka patience breadth of the experience from the administration. Well start with ambassador aed he willman. I will be brief, just because, you knowly my time and so ill mostly react to things that were said. But let me say first react first to the panel before, that was a wonderful, wonderful panel to cued does for everybody in it and for will for putting it together here at the clements center. The whole question of agency and how much a president actually does is an ageold question. Ny our colorado home have on the wall im the Time Magazine persons of the year since 1927 because i believe that people really do make history and really it do change things. And this whole idea of the flow of the times i think is a good excuse for those getting in and flowing, to tell you the truth, who really daont want to chang much. Theres a big difference between transactional president s and transformational president. A transz transactional is an inbox president , a transformational president is an outbox president. One who wants to make a change. My area. Referee the fact is there were four pillars in Ronald Reagans strategy. Whether he thought it was a strategy, i have no idea. Whether he really put the four together, i have no idea. But they were very distinct. Number one was the delegit ma zation of the soviet leadership. Started the First Press Conference had he as president. Theres no mistake about it they lie, cheat, steal to further their aims. Ended with his speech to the nation right when he left office. And the the suspicion about the soviet leadership and the system was prevalent, no other president had done anything like that. Nixon, carter, no one had delegitimized the soviet union like that, just wasnt done. So thats new, brand new. Second was like i say, the overall defense buildup. That i concede was more of a republican view than anything at that time, so i would say out of four thats the closest that somebody else would have done. But a republican president , vast buildup when he got into office. Number three, is, of course, sdi. And sdi would not have happened with Ronald Reagan. People ask all the time, well, at ryka vic were people trying to talk reagan into accepting gore bah chaffs cashiering of sdi . I said, to tell you the truth, the issue never came up . Why . Because reagan knew what he wanted. He did not want the sdi to be cashiered in any respect. So that that was pretty well set with him. So these kind of factors were, you know, from reagan and from his thoughts. The fourth was, of course, the real reduction in Nuclear Weapons, not the limitations of increases, all right. Again, nothing that carter ever thought of or wanted or advocated, nothing that nixon ever thought of or wanted or advocated. Nothing that ford ever wanted or add video indicated. Nothing that we in the business really thought was doable but was startling and reagan instifted on it. Okay. Out of those four things, at least three and a half of them are unique to Ronald Reagan and no one else would have done that. Second overall point i would make is on the very good panel before us, which i learned a lot from, the question of the human rights, sir, very nice job on that. But i would make three overall points, okay. Number one, the rap that Ronald Reagan in retrospect gets for really going after human rights against com mu anything, not against authoritarian south african, south american bad guys around the world, i think is totally justified. Authoritarian dictators never massacred tens of millions of people asco communism did. Authoritarian governments can change. South korea goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Taiwan goes from authoritarian government to a free government. Chile goes from an authoritarian government to a freer kbofr government. Com munists till the end of the cold war never changed. So i think the idea, lets really stress human rights against communism, rather than against athor tear nix i think is totally justified, okay. Second overall point on hum nan rights is, sir, im sure its in your paper but this is a gigantic factor. The gigantic factor is of course, iran. Comade did i is much worse. Ronald reagan comes in, the day tomorrow, that hes sworn in, 30 years ago, was the day that the hostages were released from iran, okay. After 444 days. There was a trauma in the United States about iran. There was a clear evidence that if you go like carter did to remove all too late the shaw, youre going to get maybe something a lot worse. And you know what . In iran we got something a lot worse. People there said, oh, couldnt be worse than the shaw. By the way, it was, all right. I was very fortunate at the inauguration, i went to the inauguration, i was having a blacktie party at my own house the night of the inauguration. I had the parents in town, a few brothers, and their wives in town, gene kirkpatrick, george will, rumsfelds, the chain nips, all kinds of people we were friendly with at that time. And it was so cool because that night i left my own blacktie party and went over with jimmy carter to welcome the ex hostages that just had been released. So i followed the story very carefully, but the idea of the experience of iran was a gigantic overhang for the human rights situation during the Reagan Administration. Third point i would make it you have to grade on the curve on human rights, okay. Carter spoke about the human rights policy. I dont know if it was any different than the reagan policy. He toasted the shaw of iran as the island of stability in a turbulent area. I dont think that was a great human rights. I dont remember carter taking a stance on south africa or south america or other places. There was quite there was radically different from the Reagan Administration. He gave a few more speeches than reagan did on human rights, but i dont see any policy big differences. Nor i do see dig differences i dont want to rap on give a rap on carter, i dont see any differences in other president s. Obama talked about human rights, he hung on mow bar rick a very long time when everybody generally thought, you know, he was on his way out on that. He had, you know, acceptances, certainly the most horrendous human rights violation probably since world war ii, to tell you the truth is syria, of which obama did nothing. Okay. I cant imagine a human rights situation where you have over a half a Million People in the situation and american president basically giving mentioning it a few times tisk, tisk, thats a terrible thing but actually not doing anything. I think thats the most horrendous human rights record i have seen since world war i. All right. Those are my views on the past. Real quickly, will, i would have to say that work for Ronald Reagan was a delight. I was very lucky because he was interested in certain things and he was not interested in a lot of things, okay. And those things he was not interested, he wasnt interested. All right. And it was kind of a odd situation that he cared about i was lucky, he cared about my field and he cared enormously about my field. In the year i was sworn in as arms control director moving in from the united nations, 1983 a very eventful year which of there were no talks of going, i went over to the white house i think Something Like 38 times with meetings for the president. Almost once a week. All right. I can imagine what it would be like if we had ongoing talks during that time. But there was always something coming up, and the reason for these meetings was that Ronald Reagan was interested in the subject. He liked to talk about it. When you look at the thousand or so radio broad cascasts he did those years before he was governor and before president , you think of the hotbutton issues that people use to get elected, especially get the nomination and the republican party. And they were god, guns, and gays, all right, the three gs. Ronald reagan spoke in practically none of them in the thousand radio broadcasts. He mentioned i think abortion was one out of the 1,000, gun control may have been one, i dont know. And gays was none. And, you know, those werent those were the hotbutton issues to the elector rate, School Prayer and all those things, but they werent to ronald ray fwan. Over some half of his talks were about soviet affairs or arms control, okay. And he had to choose them and did so. So it was i was lucky, he was interested in this field, he knew what he knew and he knew what he didnt know. And it was very typical, as i said in my remark, that he asked for the experts to get together, he gave us the overall view, reduce by half, try to get the soef yets to go along on how that would be done, try to eliminate the euro missiles and he was happy with whatever solution we came up with on doing that as long as it was the overall thought and the overall guidance he had. And on sdi, which was really the hotbutton issue in remembering covic, he didnt ask us our opinion, he didnt need our opinion, he had his own opinion and he really led the way on sdi, which was his program rather than our program. Thank you you all. Thanks. Admiral. One note i would add back, jay ford doesnt get credit he deserves on the issue of human rights. Because he included that in the hill sink i can accords. Yeah, that was. And when we talk later to the refuse nick whos survived the time, they said thats what gave them hope, that are there was external support and would eventually lead to the com munists losing power. Fair point. Very good point. Mine are recommend recommend nenss of a man who was very approachable, likeable and easy to work with. I First Encountered him at a Bohemian Grove where i was the guest of g. H. W. Bush who was making appearances. This is critical if youre hoping to run for the presidency. Both bush and reagan for longtime members of the bow heem man grove. Was there a luncheon after the lakeside speech at bushs camp and there were three of us retired navy four stars there as his guests. When governor reagan spotted us, he got the platform, the mike, and told the story about the pirates and standing up to fight them. And when he finished, future president bush turned to him and said, damn, he is good in the process of what you were going to see. Fast forward next encounter with the governor was after hes, in fact, taken the oath of office, the day after hed taken the oath of office. I had been approached in late november, what i consider being director of Central Intelligence, that was very easy i said hell, no, in the process. I was getting ready to retire. I had done sfunplus years. I was blocking promotional opportunities for people id help bring along in the naval intelligence. That was from ed browning. Went out to australia for a visit got pulled out of minister Defense Office by bill mitten dore of. Bobby you turned it down, youve got to take this job. Im not going to. And then got back from that trip and my First Encounter meeting weinberger who offered me wasnt persuading me to go to the ddci, he offered me a job at the pentagon in the process. Momentarily thought that sounded pretty exciting until my wife said, are you kraes crazy . So i turned it down. And thought things were behind i was so immersed with president carter on the final negotiations for getting the hostages out, and, in fact, my last conversation with carter as president and president elect is sitting next to him in the limo headed to the capital to hake him that t tell him that the hostages were in the aircraft but would not be able to take off until carter was president. Next morning secretary says the president is calling. I thought it was carter following pup the it was the president. He went through the whole rational. When they lost new hampshire, he invited bill casey to chair his political campaign. And then asked in his typical manner well, what job would you like in the administration in and casey responded, well, if i cant be secretary of state, director of Central Intelligence. Hed been head of oss operations in europe, world war ii, great event in his life. They laughed. Go forward to tuesday night, november, and its clear hes won. Turns to casey and said, well, bill, are you ready to be director of Central Intelligence . He said if i cant be secretary of state in the process. He was always twoun keep dribbling. And about an hour later the phone rang. The president told me all of this. It was Barry Goldwater congratulating you on winning the election and sid only have one request. I have the perfect candidate to be the director of Central Intelligence, advice admiral bobby inman whos running nsa. And he said i met with him but ive already given the job to bill casey. Long silence. Because casey and goldwater hated one another from public and party politics. Then they theyre sort of sorting out how to deal with this and the president said ive got more calls generated by barry about you than anybody else running, he just wouldnt get off of it. So tic helms suggested, why dont do you a shotgun marriage, have inman as the deputy. We did that and he declined. And i know cap had a conversation with you and you declined. Well, now were in office. And speaking as your commander in chief, i need you and i want to you take the job as bill case i c caseys deputy. Under the circumstances id be honored hopefully no more than two months and he agreed to that. And he saidty and by the way im going to give you four stars. It was very strange, i was confirmed on the 13th of february, took up the job. I was still the director of National Security agency until the 30th of march, and one of my favorite things, we solved more problems within those two agencies in that six weeks, i learned from rick about sending letters from back and forth from navy and doe on how do it. But casey wanted to run totally different from any past director. Normally the director deals with the outside world, the deputy runs the agency. That wasnt what he wanted had the he wanted to personally run the clandestine service, covert operations and the analytical side. He didnt want anything to with science, technology, administration, all of that community stuff, budgets and all the rest. I had been in the job six days and i got a call, the president wanted to see me. So i get in the car and go down, and theres frank car luch which i,d also been summoned. And it was very simple and direct. By the first time he ever called me by my first name. Bobby, bill has told me youre going to do everything with regard to budgets and the rest, rebuilding the Intelligence Community and spend whatever you need to spend and, frank, you decide where to put it in the Defense Budget to make it happen. You could not have had clearer or simpler guidance on what to do. So we laid out a fiveyear plan and got started and found that the drawdowns had limited the training establishments, they were real limits. And how much you could rebuild and what pace. Because he had asked for cabinet status, bill had been granted that which meant i was subcabinet level. Casey never went to a Cabinet Meeting or an nsc meeting in my 18 months. I went to all of them. The only thing he went to was the National Security Planning Group where approval of covert operations were done in the process. And it was fascinating to sit at the angle and watch the president. He was amazingly relaxed and when people were, you know, talking sort of endlessly. What i picked up about the second or Third Session with the role ed niece played, youd be ten minutes to go in the session, however much time had been allocated and niece would cut off a long winded answer, ask two or three more questions. The president would then summarize the meeting and what he summarized were the answer to nieces questions. So he hadnt bothered with all that other stuff, he knew he was going to get the essence of what was important from ed and then he would, in fact, pick that up. The and there were sore many encounters. He loved to tell jokes. He didnt need joke writers, it was just natural. Early on, there were still separate mens and Womens Press Corps and they had six new members of congress all trying to be funny. Schneider from rhode island wearing grouch cho marks things. The senator from new york said the president knew how he was going to solve the budget deficit, he was going to show his old movies at the white house and charge people to attend them. They all finished, president goes up, turns and looks at him and said,dom, if my movies had made that kind of money, i wouldnt be here. But that was just his nature and his ease and speed of dealing with them. He didnt he wasnt interested in the details unless they were pertinent to something that was on his mind. And then woe pursue them and get them, grasp them and hold on to them. We were meeting about a year in and he made the comment that nothing useful to the u. S. Had ever come from the arms control agreements. So, mr. President , i would like to suggest maybe sometimes they were. What . So i talked about how they had made the decision given the limits to do fewer ssbns and more mobile missiles as you came to deal with zblart and he said, nobodys ever told me that. And he picked it up and used it. So it was classic that when he saw something, he would change his mind if he accepted its vulnerability and then move with it. The shift in his dealing with the soviet union owes a substantial debt to Margaret Thacher. Gore bah chef had come to power, the tra generalco years were behind us and ms. Thacher was the first one to meet him. And she called him, called the president and said, ronnie, this is somebody question work with and that began a process. By this point im already out, but my departing week mrs. Thacher had called and they had conclude they urgently needed to be able to stage through Ascension Island to be able to support before deployment. Ascension was an island that will had been leased to us, if fact was an nsa asset for collection purposes. And so were being told this, and ambassador kirkpatrick at the u. N. Said, oh, mr. President , country approve that. It would destroy hemisphere solidarity. And, again, one of those unfortunate outbursts . What hemispheric solidarity . The british have been with us since the war of 1812 every time weve been in a crisis. And he turned and he said, sorry, gene, tell maggie she is use Ascension Island. It was that kind of cutting through the fog for simplicity that i saw. One final note. It was clear from the beginning he focused on people and what motivated people and what the influences were on people. And knowing he was going to head for dialogue through the soef yets. I introduced suzanne massey. Former wife of a naval officer, had written a book called the land of the fire bird its a magnificent book on russian art and history. And the soefets they love to displayed the art and hated that they didnt get any credit for it. So i recommended through defer that th deever to brief the president. He had taken her back several times before going. And she was the one who was insistent that the Intelligence Community was totally wrong on religion. They did a communism has wiped it out. She said, its still alive its just submerged in the process. Fast forward years to george w. Bushs First Encounter with putin and hed been briefed that, in fact, putin wart cross that his mother had given him. And as he relayed to us here, he went after theyd done their formal conversation went down just with interpreters bush asked him and putin opened his shirt and showed him the cross. And that was the background behind saying, ive looked in his eyes and ive seen his soul. And we had a year where things worked well and then they didnt. So im rambling too long, but what i would convey kwaz are the warmth of the individual, how sharp the mind was, and by in large how little interest had he in details. Broad policies. The contrast with carter couldnt have been more extreme. President carter wanted every detail in the process. It was quite an adjustment. Finally, on his attitudes when he first got into office, during the transition they brought count dem her wrath, head of the french to the west coast. And he told the president elect that he was going to be challenged militarily by the soviets in his first year in office and that that would probably occur in Central America. And that was why when they came to washington the focusing on events in Central America got a great deal more prominence because they believed this was not just castro, that it was the soviets testing him. So the cautionary note about who gets access to a president elect and talks to them during that transition period and i better stop there. Okay. All right. Proefr nau. Okay, thanks. Well, when will asked me or told me, i guess, about six months ago that he was think about a conference on reagan, i simply said to him how long i can stay . There arent than many such events going on, at least in the academic world, certainly not at our annual conventions in any case think this is an extremely worthwhile opportunity. Im also humbled to be on this panel obviously with these distinguished gentlemen. Its probably the reason why im not wearing a tie. But let me just make a few comments about my impressions of reagan. I was in the white house, in the Transition Team and then in the white house from the beginning of the Reagan Administration through the fall of 1983. And ran a small shop, we had about five people on the International Economic side of things on the nsc and dealt largely, of course, with his Economic Policy and ramifications for the international economy. The summit process at that time, which was a g7 process was extremely important for both forcing us to think systemically about our our own policy and explain it and project it to the other allies and then of course an effort to try to coordinate toes policies. And those activities didnt occur once a year, they really occurred about six or eight times a year. We had regular meetings every couple of months and then lots of exchanges back and forth. And i was the white house is her per on the team, on the American Team when included the undersecretary Economic Affairs and the under secretary for Monetary Affairs in the treasure relationship department. I didnt meet reagan until early 1980s, a meeting in february in fact when he came to washington after id been asked to serve on the Foreign Policy advicery board. And my First Impressions were very favorable. This was a meeting at the csis on kaye street and we had assembled maybe about 50 of us and the minute reagan walked i had never met him i had never seen him personally. But the minute he walked into the room, i often wondered what was it that struck me about him . He always surveyed a room when he walked in, never just kind of walked in and went to his seat. He kind of walked in, looked around, he made eye contact with people, always of course had a smile about him, but also had this stature. Had he some real stature. I thought about that a lot actually over the years in writing about him and so on. I think one of his attributes as a leader and in this kind of a situation was his presence and concept sort of presence its an actors concept but in this case he just filled that room with presence. And that was his, to some extent, that was part of his charisma. He made a comment at that meeting which also endeared him to me because he told us, we were supposed to be thinking about the policy aspects of what he would be doing if he was elected. This is february, now, of 1980. And he said, look, ive got plenty of people helping me with the campaign, i dont need to you help me with the campaign, i want to you think about what i should be doing once i get to that little white house down the street. And he said, you know what . If i dont get into that little white house down the street, he said, who needs it at my age . Now that could have been interpret the as a flippant comment. I took it that it wasnt about Ronald Reagan, this was about what he wanted to did, this wa about the country. So this kind of selflessness. The man was extremely selfconfident and yet not narcissistic in any way, very comfortable in his own skin and genuinely i think there because of what he believed, the ideas that he had developed over the years. Now, this sounds strange you think about Ronald Reagan because his image is one of an amenable duns at least thats the way he was identified when he came to washington by his critics. But in fact the man was extremely bright. Theres a lot of evidence and i would urge es special lit people who examined the record to go back and to look at his days in college, he was a very bright guy who had a very good memory who was interested in lots of things who actually read lots of things in some ways unusual things, and im trying to one of the things im working on currently is to try to put together what he read when and then to try to look at memoirs of people he was dealing with at that time for example his early hollywood years to see if they remember any of the conversations they may have had with him. Because he was reading so much and was so interested in political questions when he was in hollywood in the early years, that bill holton tells the story tlar ways very close friend of his during those years, tells the story that when he came into the cafeteria people would try to sit some place where he wouldnt join them because they didnt want to have to speak and debate and talk about politics during the course of the so the man was a good deal more intellectually active. And i think the record, you know, what weve now discovered in terms of all the writings that he did, the speeches in the 1960s, the letters that he wrote, he has so far theres been more than 10,000 letters, 10,000 letters collected that Ronald Reagan wrote. Excuse me . Handwritten. Handwritten in deed, all handwritten. Jefferson only wrote 18,000 letters, and in his day thats the only way you could communicate. Reagan of course had many other ways to communicate. Schultz wunts once said and i think very insightfully. He said a man who writes a lot thinks a lot. And someone who thinks a lot has probably read a lot. There were a number of occasions while reagan was in office where his press secretary asked him if he could release the books that he was reading. Reagan refused to let him do that. Said, no, its not necessary. And he was reading substantive books. Some of this has been put together by people over the years. So any way, i mentioned this because and emphasize it because for those of you that are looking at the archival records and so on, be aware or at least double check anytime you want to reach the conclusion that it wasnt really reagan who was doing this who had these ideas, it was really one of his staff people. Because reagan many a unique way of exacting with his staff. But if you look at the issues that he was concerned about, and in my case the economic issues, reagan needed every one of his staff people, key staff people when thinking about Economic Policy, all right. But he didnt need anyone, he needed them all because he was the only one who sort of put together the pieces. Now, when you think about Economic Policy, had he supply sliders, he had monitorists, fiscal conservatives, he had trade, people who were concerned by trade liberal zation. Now reagans strategy had a waive putting those things together and that storys been told, ive told it by the way in a book that was published in 1990 by oxford called the myth of americas decline its a detailed account i was going to raise it up and thank you, will, you saved me a little embarrassment here at my own selfpromotion. And there was a strategy. The most important thing to read, i think, when youre look at those early years and reagans policies, whether its on Economic Policy or Energy Policy or any of these things is go to the nsdds. Bill clark did an enormous job as the National Security adviser for ronald ray an from 1982 to 1993 because he organized more than 100 National Security decision directives that were done during that are time. Every one of those were a three, fourmonth process we brought together the agencies and we tried to argue, we tried to integrate reagans ideas with the details an different responsibilities of the agencies and some of those now rers special lit ones with respect to the soviet union are getting some attention, but there are a lot more in there. And on the sum mitts i would urge you to read the memos that went to the president before those meetings. There were three of them that i was involved in. Aught at, ver sigh and williamburg. And then there was a summit with developing countries which was kind of a precursor to the g20. It was with the countries in can soon in october of 1981. The williamsburg summit, i like to think sparked here by kens wonderful book beautifully written, youve got to read that book and his comments here today, but i was struck by the goodness now ive lost track of my thought. Williamsburg summit. Yeah. That the williamsburg summit was in fact the rake covic summit of Economic Policy because it was the summit in which we had had of course some very severe conflicts with the allies at ver sigh, but at williamsburg it was kind wrf we really got together. We really began to see where we were going. And from that summit, by the way clr has an annex and that annex details the kind of policies that we were going to pursue, by the way the french within six months were pursuing many of those policies. They became the basis for the washington consensus which became the imf format for the policies in the late 80s and 1990s. And in some sense that summit set out a very coherent set of economic policies that more or less spread to the other ocd countries and many of the developing countries and coincided with one of the biggest boomds, i call it the great expansion. Not the great moderation, the great expansion that took place between 1980 and 2010. Because we had real gdp, annual gdp growth in the world during that period of 3 , this includes by the way the 2008, 2009 recession. All right. Because the chinese kept growing very, very effectively during that recession. So world growth was sustained during that period. But this is an extraordinary record. It kplarz very favorably to the period right after world war ii. And you have to ask yourself the question, how did this happen. I understand we heard already this afternoon and well hear again im sure tomorrow and the next day about all the factors that could have perhaps caused this. I would urge us to think hard about, you know, as ken mentioned, maybe the first question ought to be what what of these outcomes did agents like Ronald Reagan or Margaret Thacher did they cause . All right. Try to dont look for factors because there are hundreds of factors out there. Dont look for factors that might account for why these things would have occurred even without those agents but rather ask the question what did the agents doing, what did they think . How did they implement their thoughts . And here you need to trace reagans ideas into the policies that he put in place. And how did those policies then actually change structures, change circumstances . I mean in the case of the information revolution were which some people regard as the reason why the economy came back in the 1980s, question is would it have come back if we had not revitalized the economies that existed in the industrialized countries and in the developing world in the 1970s . Remember that period . That was a whole decade of stagflation, no growth, very high inflation, increasing trade, Commodity Prices out of control. A very bad era. And somehow or other that got turned around. I think you can make a case, and i try make that case in this book that reagans policies had something to do with that. So tracing sort of how agents think about a policy, whether or not the policys they implement are consistent been those ideas and whether or not they can be linked in some reasonable way in outcomes. You can develop an explanation which doesnt just depend on this notion well things would have happened that way anyway. Why is it important, i suppose, let me conclude with this thought. Why is it important to kind of Pay Attention to the role of in this case the role of Ronald Reagan who i think had some very clear ideas that had formulated over a long period of time, put them into policies and those policies coincided with outcomes that you might have predicted on the basis of those policies. By the way, every time weve had periods in this weve implemented policies like reagan did, supply side, sort of incentive policies, monetary stability, that is efforts to try to manage inflation, some deregulation, not, you know, massive deregulation but some deregulation and then trade liberal lie zation, every time weve had periods of policies like to weve had extraordinary growth. Under harding we had growth of 14 in 1942. You look at william hardings policies in that he put into place in 1921, took over a very stagnate economy by the way from wilson and then we had a boochl seven or eight years in the course of the 1920s. It happened again under john f. Kennedy and then under reagan. Will it happen again under trump . Theres a good question for us to think about and talk about. There are many reasons why it doesnt look like it will, but nevertheless, try to make that case for agency before you revert to structure. And the reason for doing that is i think just to make policy accountable because if things happen, and agents arent important in terms of what happens, then you really cant hold leaders accountable. You then have to sort of look to fate, i suppose, or whatever those developments are that youre pointing to that leaders either adjust to and succeed or dont adjust to and fail. Where do those general and structural changes, where do they come from . Reagans legacy, a final thought about that. I wonder about it because i know from my own personal experience in the academic world that very few people in the academic world who served in the reagan zation. I contrast there are a its going to run an institute for politics, is in fact, running an institute for politics at the university of chicago. Theyll be turning out a lot of legacy stuff on obama. And yet reagan, in two ways was one of the most extraordinary president s weve had in the history of the country. And let me just identify with those two what those two factors are. First of all, he is the hes one of five president s that led the country there a crisis. We have washington, we have lincoln. We have wilson. You have roosevelt, all dealing with wars and reagan dealing, in effect, with the preempgs of the war. The preempgs of the cold war. Much more difficult to do, by the way than to manage, in some sense, much more commendable than to manage a war after it breaks out. Reagan actually preempted a war. Secondly, he is one of eight president s who was reelected twice and turned over the white house to his own party. Which suggest not only did he have he was able to out comes but he was able to bring the public along with him. There are only three of those, other eight, by the way, were founding fathers. Jefferson, madison. And five of them were included, lincoln, kennedy, reagan. Reagan was the only other president besides lincoln turned the white house over into his own party. I think that says something about both of those things, in terms of what he accomplished and how he was able to bring along public opinion, something about the extraordinary leadership of this individual. Ill leave it at that and open it up for questions. Lets turn it over to the audience for questions. May i do two quick things. Its a setting tex, the role of nancy reagan, an enormously close and loving relationship. She wasnt looking for power of her own, she was totally devoted to him. Most importantly, she was determined to protect his health. So the instruction that the day we began 21st of january, 10 hours a day. If theres an evening function, that comes out of the ten hours. And she was unbending on that. But what he did was bring discipline and thats the second individual and the skill with which he brought management, time management, first year, 90 of the events were domestic. By the eighth year 90 were international in the process. But the impact of those two individua individuals around him in which the policies and decisions were created. So were going to turn it over to questions, ill ask that you wait until you get the microphone to ask the question. This is for our friends at cspan. Here we go, right here. Hi. Good evening. And thank you so much for the terrific talks. Im here wi we authored a pap on the Reagan Administrations reaction and thought to the israeli strike in june 81. There were several questions that interest us and limit myself to one, maybe one and a half. So, how was the strike actually perceived by the president himself and by this close advisers because weve seen several accounts and they seem to be clashing and theres a revisionistic account which we have our own take on, we would be much in hearing your thoughts on it. Was it framed as a huge success in favor of nonproliferation or was it framed as a sort of a stab in the back by an ally that didnt really consult before launching it. Well stop here so other people can have a turn, thank you. We would like to take that up . Unfortunately i couldnt hear the question. The question was about what did you observe about president reagans response to israelis attack on the Iraqi Nuclear react, june of 81 . Because theres competing accounts was president reagan upset about it, was he supportive of it . Surprised. Im going to tell you, his government was surprised. And in looking at 800 miles out of limits, the aircraft so i can come back, that meant Precision Targeting information. Only britain and israel could automatically requisition, satellite photography, everybody else had to ask for it. The question to ask was, was israel in the last six months. Plus an awful lot of other potential targets, as well. The decision i took was to constrain the automatic requisition, up to 200 miles, anything that was defending. Beyond that for offensive purposes, they had to ask. So furious he came to the u. S. To try to over turn that and it was the strong support that kept it in place. The actual dialogue wasnt it was from wine burger and the process. But, it was a reaffirmation of what we already knew that if israel considered it to be potentially life threatening, they would not ask for permission, they would act. And i dont think thats fundamentally changed to the present time. Anything to add on that . I was at the u. N. And patrick watered down a resolution so that it was almost nothing. But it wasnt almost nothing, he was still something. It was a situation where she really fought and couldnt stand voting for it because it was the most mild, almost unseeable condemnation of israel, but it was still taken as antiisrael. And so she didnt like it one bit. I think Ronald Reagan probably had to guess, i dont know, thought that the attack was totally justified and fine. Part of the argument was that it was a preemptive attack, the nuclear reactor, as you know very well, had not gone critical, why dont you just wait until critical. The counter argument to that was very simple, would you be happier if it went critical. I mean, every cold that happened to anybody in the middle east would have been blamed on israel for putting all this radiation in the air, so i always felt that was kind of stupid argument, to tell you the truth. I never heard Ronald Reagan say a word against it and i heard speak against it and gene vote against it. And i know that you werent working on nonpro, you were at the white house at the time, werent you . No, i dont remember anything from that particular incident or period of time, but i do remember reagans reaction at the summit to the israeli invasion of lebanon, which occurred on the second day of that summit, i think it was. And they immediately changed the subject of the conversation and of course the europeans, one after the other, kind of came out strongly against what israel was doing. I remember the president jumping in and saying, look, we need to look at the facts hereful we need to see what helpful. We need to see what kind of circumstances they were facing. Lets not jump to conclusions. He was very protective, you could say, in that situation of israel. But then after a while he turned against him. Yes. Yes. Yeah. Other questions . Im sorry. Id love to hear your thoughts about Ronald Reagan. If i can add one thing on this, i didnt get to ask you this at your presentation earlier, but the timing is eerie, those of you may know that iran contra broke three weeks after, so weve got this, you know, kind summit and the administration is riding high. You saw poindexter in the picture. Thank you. The university of virginia. I was not there. President began his morning with the senior staff. And rather than intelligence coming to brief, particularly after the shift to mcfarland and poindexter. They would run through ten, 12 items that had gone on. President , generally, were you good, jim baker would stop it to say, how . When . What happened . And president would listen very carefully. And then you had the baker shift of jobs. If the president said good. He would say great. What he lost in that change somebody listening carefully as theyre slipping pretty quickly through all the things theyre doing and raised question. And i suspect poindexter had, by the way, we found the solution for funding. President would say good. And if baker had still been there, there would have been a discussion then, what is it youre doing and it would have surfaced in the process. Its the impact of the shift of principle advisers in the process and like i said, thursday night we came in. Friday night didnt get much sleep. I was asked to go back to brief them the whole way back which was a real pain in the neck, to tell you the truth. Im sure i was almost incoherent. But one of the reporters on the plane said, can i talk to you for a minute . The other reporters had a big stink about it because, you know, this was going to be individuals who promised everybody that it was just a subject that was not related to russia or soviet unit or arms control at all. It was something totally different, so they let it go. And so i went and stood at the side of the plane, which was very noisy, by the way. And she said, i heard these reports about exchanging arms for hostages and middle east and came out of lebanon newspaper. I said, i know nothing about it, so dont take my word for anything. B, it sound crazy, sorry, cant help you. I continued to think it was kind of crazy and didnt make any sense. I always thought about bill casey and how could he allow Something Like that. It didnt make any real sense to me. To put Ronald Reagan in the picture, he had a soft side to him. He would take them into oval office. Which was terrible, nice thick to thing thing to do. You feel, oh my gosh, i should be doing something and then, you know, then you roll in with poindexter combing up with the schemes of what they can do. Theyre moderates in iran. You have to trade all of that and it just led to very bad things i think that its it would not have happened had reagan would have otherwise advised. I do not think it would have happened if he had the whole story. But mcfar land was looking for a way to be the henry kiss sin jer of the middle east and break through with iran. And as you said, will, i was in the arms control business good friend with frank arlucci at thanksgiving called me up right when we get back. And said the president is going to ask me to be National Security adviser. Tomorrow. This was the monday after thanksgiving. Would you lead my transition group. It was absolutely the worst job i ever had in my life. What you did was you found out that the National Security whole group which was about 120, about 120, a lot of them had been there for six years its time for some new blood. A lot of them were responsible for all kind of operations that the job is not so right after thanksgiving for the next month, basically, what i did was guillotine work and it was awful. I had an office in the eob. I remembered calling in person after person, saying after six years you had been here enough. Why dont you either find a job in the other agency or find a job outside the government, in essence, firing them one afternoon was a particularly heavy meeting scheduled whereby very bad timing, a choir had come in to the old eob to sing Christmas Carols. There im there in the office, firing people where, you know, Christmas Carols are being sung outside of my door, which was absolutely horrendous. So any way, didnt take the job for various things. I was suppose to leave the office real good when he got there. It was a terrible position. I did it and i think it was the right thing to do, but it was the right thing to do for someone else to do, besides myself, to tell you the truth. I think it was a real dark spot on the Reagan Administration, nothing to be proud of. I think the president was certainly ultimately responsible, as he said time and time again, but it came out of this, oh my gosh i have to do something to these people who are right in front of him. Thank you. Okay. Weve got a question back here. Hold on a second. The mic is expeditiously moving your way. Please identify yourself. Thanks for giving us this amazing talk. Starting in 1983 they started using chemical weapons against iran. They used it all the way through the war until the end. Im curious about, especially, adelman, im curious about how that effected your job dealing with arms control of course chemicals weapons falls under that purview. How did it really effect you . How did it effect president reagan, what were his thoughts . Was it ever brought to his attention, thanks . It effected everything. But not in the way i wanted it to be effected, to tell you the truth. It was clear evidence from the Intelligence Community that this was taking place, hussein was fighting with comine. The war, he had started it, basically, although thats in dispute. The fact is anything was better at that point because of the hostages because of his total hostility. He was seen as a monster, but he was in some respects cooperative through the United States and various. I as the director of arms control wanted to sanction, at least our relationship with iraq because the chemical weapons, we were then promoting a ban on chemical weapons, production. There had always been a ban since world war i, i think. This was on production, something that did happen years after i left the office. But we started that in 1983, george her bert walker bush, Vice President of the United States went to geneva to introduce our ideas on banning the production of chemical weapo weapons. I thought it was totally hypocrite cal to have a proposing ban on the production of Nuclear Weapons that had been, like i said, from use for 50 years and but going along with iraq on the use of chemical weapons. I had argued about that with the state department. I personally argued with George Schultz about the issue and he told me, nothing is worse. Hussein is a terrible person. Hes been cooperative with us in various ways, were not going to abruptly change our policy, it was really a choice at that time between the iran and iraq. Much higher. Maybe a million or sort of a million. So the idea was you had to choose one together. You couldnt stand back and let it happen. So i was very much for sanctioning or doing something against iraq and found no support in the government at all. I remember there was even meeting about the incident where i made that case. I understand that. I wasnt secretary of state. When shults contradicted what i said and got quite mad about it. I understood his view as well. He was looking way over larger perspective than i was involved with. I still think it was the right thing to do at the time. In retrospect i dont think it was the right thing to do, to have the stand like that, that this was unacceptable behavior. John. Thank you. Im Jonathan Hunt from the university of South Hampton and another question for you ambassador edelman, if you dont mind. This is somewhat at risk to my own presentation on saturday which is about the follow up. Looking at the documents in the Ronald Reagan president ial library, one of my favorite is the informational to the various agency has about nsdd 250, which looks to institute post arms controls measure and they actually send it out on a friday afternoon with instructions to return it, if i can actually read from the document, to return it by the subsequent monday. So only giving the weekend to respond in order to try to taper down on the dissension within the government. Im curious if you could speak to how it was perceived and acted and also throughout the administration, and also try to hazard a guess as to why, by the end of the Reagan Administration, you dont have a start. Actually require another five years, another president and looming collapse of the soviet union to push through what was really there and outlined by the end of the meeting. Thank you for your questions. Thank you for using the word squabble in the administration. It wasnt a squabble and it was an out right war and a bloody war at that. And all that was very heart felt. All of it was very passionate and all of it was argued in front of the president at great length and none of it mattered. It was one of those great eruptions that didnt matter at all. Why didnt it matter . A, the joint chiefs, bill was chairman of joint chiefs at the time. Was absolutely furious that the head of the soviet military, chief of staff of the military. There was a wonderful, wonderful man, spent his whole life in the army and soviet union and committed suicide when the soviet union fell in his office on his desk, hanging himself from the chandelier, chandelier he proudly showed me the year before in his office, but bill was actually furious. He was not there and that he was there. He called me the morning i got back asking me what had happened and everything like that. His argument was to do away with, first of all, Nuclear Weapons when there was a conventional imbalance, was a very dangerous thing, the first when she rolled in to camp davis shortly there after and Prime Minister what we called handbaged the president and not directly. That means, just beat him over the head but she went after the staff more and was nice to reagan. So there was the no Nuclear Weapons eliminate all Nuclear Weapons with reagan that were talked about on sunday afternoon for a very brief amount of time and enormous controversy. There was more substantive to do away with wholistic missiles that had been proposed at the lunch on sunday. The break before that and thats what bill and myself at the meeting afterwards said it was fundamental tally against the interest, but for various reasons, budgetary reasons and protection reasons that the whole triad had been on the basis, at least two legs of the triad and land based missiles on the basis of Ballistic Missiles. And none really matter, ill tell you why, because the zero Nuclear Weapons was going nowhere. The Ballistic Missile proposal lasted about 10 minutes. We went back to what we had done on saturday night, which was the various limits in sublimates on strategic arms, and the sunday morning on the euro missiles first zero in europe and zero in europe and asia. Your last question on why wasnt there a start agreement, i left the administration two days after he left in december of 198 7. I left because i was absolutely sure there would no be a start agreement. Why . Start agreement which was strategic arms, its far more complicated, lots more systems. Lots more categories to do. We had made enormous progress. This is 1987. So you just had 1988, 1986 you had just had 1987 and part of 88 to do that. There was no way looking at all of the issues that was in the start agreement that you could ever get it done. So, it took, i think, two years into the Bush Administration to wrap it up, but they were wrapped up on the basis of what we had done on the saturday night. So those limits and those sublimates, categories, subcategories, blah blah blah, that, you know, i thought since that time, 30 years now, i had thousands, thousands of parts in my brain filled with these weapon systems that has no use to anybody, especially to me all of that time on the ss 17, the ss 19. The circular air probable and all of that stuff. But thats what you need to get a control agreement. So thats why there was no way, no matter what had happened, that we were going to get a strategic arms control. In answer to your question, there were enormous eruptions, in the government, very bad will that was coming right on the heels. So the place look like it was absolutely splitting apart. You had the aftermath. But far more the aftermath of contra. There was really questioning whether president reagan would make it through on these crisis. All kind of arguments, but they faded and we went back to what we had done on saturday night and it was a glorious conclusion because reagan could do the enduring out lines for the talks and it was not just bush, but after George Herbert walker bush, clinton had another Arms Development reduction based on those supplements and those category and George W Bush did the same thing and lastly, obama did. In every administration weve taken the basic structure of the agreement and had, a wonderful legacy. And verification. How was reagans general altitude towards europe. One hand you have all of these tensions and summit, the pipeline on the other hand you have thatcher. Did he regard them as helpful or more annoying. Why dont you take this one. On the economic side and i think on the context of inf question to the extent they dealt with it. By the way, that was one of the new elements of the summit williamsburg whether they actually issued a. I mean, on that subject, reagan was rock solid behind the alliance. I mean, that was pretty clear at the very beginning. He understood and he had to first rely americas self confidence and of course the American Economy and do his part, in terms of the military build up. But then he clearly was. Now, he also was not unhappy in bucking up the allies. And i think the pipeline issue, which i was involved in, we had some people who were dealing with the east west economics and i was dealing mostly with the western world economics, he made it clear, to make the allies understand and make the u. S. Congress understand he was serious about the Defense Program and he could not, sort of, understand how cooperating the soviets in, you know, the in the production and export of gas would somehow or other make european population and the u. S. Congress more willing to support a significant defense build up and a defense deployment, all of which he felt was going to be necessary if he was going to ever get serious arms control association. He was very clear, by the way. I think ken can confirm this. He was clear from the very beginning, he talked about it during the campaign. That he was building up the defense, pending negotiation. That he was doing all of this in order to increase, not to defeat the soviet union in some kind of a, you know, all out arms race, but to create leverage, which could convince them they couldnt win and therefore they would get serious in the negotiations. By the way. Its a strategy he laid out very early. He talked about this in 1963. Its another thing i would encourage, dont just look at whats happening, you know, in a president s situation. 1963, he said the following an then he repeated it, by the way, almost word for word in his meetings with the adversary s before he went into europe after the summit to visit with the pope. And its extraordinary. This is what i mean, to, about the strategy and the fact that strategy can have an impact on if it is carried out with real conviction. He said this in 1963, is not even governor of california. He said the only sure way to avoid war is surrender without fight. But that way is based on wishing, not thinking. And if the wish doesnt come true, the enemy is far stronger than he was before you started down that road. The other way is based on the belief so far by all the evidence, he added. In an all out race, not in all right race, our system is stronger and eventually the enemy gives up the races, hopeless cause, then a noble nation extends the hands of friendship and says theres room in the world for both of us. Now, he tells the adversarieadv exactly the same thing. He said theres no miracle weapon available with which to deal with the soviet. But we could threaten the soviets with our ability to out build them. Which the soviets know we can do if we choose. Once weve established this. We would then invite the soviets to join us and luring them and joining us in the global economy. My goodness, i think thats extraordinary. Thats an 18year period and this man has some very clear formulated ideas that he is implementing. I think one of the big puzzles for me and as it relates to what ken had been talking about with sdi. Why reagan, he was always clear where he was going and what he was saying, but he wasnt always clear in his obstructions, i think you make that point in your book, to his subordinates. One of the things i always wondered, why didnt he ask in the case of sdi, for example, why didnt he ask his staff or tell his staff, look, lets get some commissions going on this. If were doing to shift to mutually assured protection, which was his idea, tomorrow, that he would build down to offensive weapons but you would build up and you would then deter by much rally assured protection, but that was such an extraordinary idea. It needed all kind of work in the arms control. Reagan never asked for any of that, as far as i know. He was aware, byty way. He was aware of the fact this was going to create a problem on the conventional side. He said, well, dont we have it can tactical Nuclear Weapons for that purpose. He was wrestling, himself, what are the implications. I always wondered what were one of his staff pick up that, we better get Congress Going on this. We better get a president ial commission going on this. I dont think weve done it to this present day. Were still going after no nukes with no sense of, how are you going to deter a world of no nukes. So its a odd thick about reagan. He believed you had to kind of move circumstances. Large success, large move movement appealed to him. This whole concept. And it was the image that attracted him there were a lot of people early on saying, it wouldnt work. Were not interested in that. It was the image of it. The soviets believed it would work. They had been doing some research on us. Look, let me assume it will work. What will need to do in order to think through the strategy that would be related to it. Its been said that the only two people were reagan. No one else in their governments did. And anything more on trans atlant atlantic relation . Mrs. Merkle had been the dominant figure in dealing with europe largely in the process. There were occasional complications, so she had adamant role and influencing how he thought about it. There are a surprising number of disputes between that, on the war they won rights for british airways, dulles, all these things came up. One of the wonderful episodes from the reagan years, it was after the grenada invasion. I had a dinner for various members for the house of commons group, dealing with Foreign Affairs one night and a fellow from that, i think the chairman of the committee had just a few minutes with reagan to try to get him to understand the british position on grenada that had already happened, military operation had already happened. He basically got nowhere, he got madder, and madder and madder. What happened he put in a call and talk to reagan and mike was on one end of the call and she had her personal assistant on her end and everybody knew that there was one person on the call as the heads of government were talking to each other and thatcher started off, you know, this was a. She says you and i are absolutely agree as conservatives. Shes getting actually nowhere. Consequently getting nowhere. She gets madder and madder. Mike was across oval office sitting on the white couch. Theyre going to interrupt, really, great protocol. Prime minister, youre talking to the president of the United States. And hes just about to do it and his face is all red. Hes getting shaky. And all of a sudden he hears, he looks over behind the desk, mike, mike, holding it up. What is it mr. President. Eventually, five minutes later she abandoned the cause and said, goodbye, and probably hang up the phone. He said, shes just wonderful. So there was a great affection there. Reagan was far right and he adopted reagan as andrea will tell you, in a way that probably beyond certainly with the germans did and beyond much anybody but the british on that so he lagged the individual leaders, the only leader i ever saw and you probably know this more than i do, that you really didnt like was to go. As bad as he got, he would take off his glasses and then he says, well, pierre, and it was kind of like using the word pierre was a class difference between ron and pierre, you know. Youre the first president. He would put his glasses on and say, well, pierre, they keep dying. Reagan had a wonderful and good to mention today on the eve of the inauguration tomorrow, he had a wonderful ability to shrug off opposition, not Pay Attention to opposition, give everybody the benefit of the doubt. There was a wonderful time in 1984 where hes going through, i think its detroit, said he liked that. And the guy the motorcade is going very slow because we were approaching something. The guy right near the motorcade has a sign impeach reagan. Hes screaming reagans policies are disaster. Hes the worst leader weve had in the American History. Screaming his head off. Reagan, he turns to the person sitting next to him and he says, that frank, see that guy out there, he said, yeah, put him down as undecided. Probably leaning against, undecided as of now. Yeah, just burst out laughing. Its just a wonderful, wonderful trait and its wonderful to remember, especially right now. Theyll come back into oval office. Mr. President , take off your jacket. And his response, mike i could never take off my jacket in this office in the process. He said on january 20th, he said, this is sickly territory and just looked at that. Although he was very courteous and, you know, maybe once i saw him a little heated and had all of these ways of kind of just letting things, you know, go by. He was also at times very very stubborn and those times proved to be very important. And i recall very vividly, a meeting, you know, theres this argument that reagan reversed himself in 1983 where created airliner and the marines and lebanon and all of these events occurred in 1983 that told him, hey, wait a minute, this exercise that presumably attack them under the guides. And so theres a theory out there that reagan at this point, he was going to shift. At the time he would have shifted. Would have been 1982. The fall of 1982 where nothing was going right. The economy the arms control negotiations were going nowhere. The walk in the woods proposal had been disposed of. He lost, by the way, i think 26 seats in the elections in 1982, so if you want to look at a time when it was really bleak and my boss, bill clark, ill grant that parenthetically. Any way clark took a couple of us in the oval. We actually tried to launch a trade route, can you imagine, in the middle of the worst recession the world had seen since world war ii, we didnt get anywhere. I was suppose to tell the president about that. Reagan sort of sat there, seemed to be uneffected looked up at the ceiling for a moment, he said, no, i dont think so, bill, i think the soviet union. I think that economic i think theyll come around. Lets just give it time. If none of this happens, and he said, you know, you and i go back to the ranch, what can be so bad about that. I mean, the guy had a commitment to his policies in the worst time, i think, of his entire presidency, maybe comes pretty close, but, look, nothing was working in the fall of 82. Yet, he decided, nope, im here for this purpose. Ive got these ideas. Ive put them in place. Im going to hang in there. If it doesnt work, ill be happy to go back to the ranch. It wasnt about Ronald Reagan. All right, we are past our time. Please join me in thanking this very singular panel. [ applause ] well bring you back for National Security in austin texas for another panel on Ronald Reagan in just a moment. Thursday well take you to the National World war i museum where we marked the 100th anniversary of americas entry into world war i. We looked at museum artifacts. Plus conversations with memorial and museum staff, as well as to world war i historians. Later the april 6th commemorative ceremony from kansas city hosted by the u. S. World war i centennial commission. Watch American History tv prime Time Thursday at 8 00 p. M. Eastern. Pros and cons of genetically modified foods. Because those of us who do this, we think that all plants are gmos theres absolutely nothing that you buy in any of your Grocery Stores whether its organic that hasnt been genetically modified. On 10 00 a. M. Easter. Then a africanAmerican History museum in washington zbh y, you i knew the nation was thursing for this museum. I didnt know the reaction would be this positive and this strong. And at 1 35 p. M. A panel of federal judges discussing the history of the bill of rights. What the bill of rights is part of the whole constitution, its hugely important designation of fences, division of power. Followed by a conversation with the smithsonian institution, the librarian of congress. And the ark vis of United States. Our collection is 156 million objects, including 2 million books and 154 million other things. And at 6 30 p. M. Eastern, president ial historians discuss president ial leadership. It is interesting that the greatest american president , abraham lincoln, is bracketed by by the least successful american president s. This Holiday Weekend on cspan. Im robert hutchings. Im a professor here at the university of texas. Its a great pleasure to welcome you all here. Its my pleasure to moderate this panel. And i will introduce the panel briefly because you have their bios, i wont go through their whole bios in my introduction. Ill say its an interesting time to be talking about europe. And after a period at which the attention of the world shifted away from europe, we tended to take for granted the achievement of more united europe, now that assumption is being called into question and the achievement of more united europe,